The agency’s deputy director Alan McQuillan said it was “one of the most valuable portfolios of assets” ever frozen in Northern Ireland. “We started with the investigation into one individual and a relatively modest amount of assets,” he said. “But the receiver soon identified a huge range of properties held by his brothers which have also been frozen. “In getting this order today, we had to be able to show to the High Court that we had a good arguable case that these assets were also the proceeds of crime.”